The tiny one-fifth mile oval constructed inside the Dome at the America's Center in St. Louis is considered to be the great equalizer and on Friday night that held true, especially in the Late Model division. While national touring series superstars struggled to even make one of two qualifying night features, several drivers who are not even known outside of their home tracks had their fifteen minutes of fame and in the end there were two up and coming stars celebrating in victory lane.
Twenty cars for twenty laps with $5,000 to win each of the Late Model features on the night and the top four in both races would lock themselves in to Saturday night's finale. The first would find Jason Welshan starting from the pole position. A veteran driver who has won a ton of features racing across the may Late Model divisions offered in Tennessee, Welshan was perhaps a surprise as the overall fastest qualifier on Thursday night while next to him in row one would be one of the two greatest Late Model drivers ever, Billy Moyer.
As the field charged into turn one for the first time Moyer went to the top to take the lead as Welshan got sideways in front of the field. Billy Moyer Jr. who had lined up third had to take evasive action by squeezing between a track tire and a universal barrier in the turn two infield to keep the field from piling up as Welshan recovered without losing much ground. UMP National Champion Rusty Schlenk was on the move from his sixth starting spot and he quickly made his way to second riding the cushion in spectacular fashion around both ends.
After catching the leader Schlenk then drove to the inside of Moyer in turn four to take the lead at the mid-race mark and he quickly pulled away from the pack. With Schlenk in control this looked like it would be a battle for the other three "transfer" positions for Saturday, but on lap fifteen the leader got too wide exiting turn two and his right rear clipped the barrier just past the exit from the speedway. The contact caused Schlenk's right rear tire to quickly drop air pressure and while he continued to lead lap sixteen the second place car of David Breazeale drove under him for the lead down the back stretch.
Desperate to try to hold on for a top four finish Schlenk tried to tuck in behind the new leader going into turn three, but contact spun Breazeale and sent the front of the field scrambling. It was a very unfortunate situation for Breazeale who would have to restart at the rear while Schlenk retired to the pit area with the flat tire.
Following the restart one more lap was scored before Austin Hubbard got into the back stretch barrier and when it turned him sideways Brandon Sheppard had no place to go and the contact sent Hubbard for a hard rollover. The car ended up on all fours, well sort of, as the left front suspension and wheel were propping up the engine compartment showing just how much damage can be done at 62 mph.
Teenage sensation Hudson O'Neal would bring the field back to green for the final three laps and he would drive away from the legend Moyer to take the victory. Welshan would benefit from the top two drivers dropping out late to take the third position while Bobby Pierce claimed fourth after starting tenth. After a trying night (more on that in the notes section) Sheppard came up one spot shy in fifth with defending Gateway Nationals champion Scott Bloomquist in sixth. In perhaps his first open Late Model start Allen Weisser was seventh, Michael Kloos finished eighth and Casey Montague dropped to ninth in the final three laps after restarting fifth. Oklahoma's Randy Timms filled out the top ten.
After misting the top side a bit during O'Neal's victory lane celebration the second Late Model main event came to the track with hometown hero Gordy Gundaker on the pole and the driver with perhaps more Late Model wins than anyone this season, West Virginia's Tyler Carpenter to his outside. As the green flag waved Carpenter charged to the high side looking to use that moisture in turns one and two to take the lead, but when third-starting Chad Zobrist got into the left rear of Carpenter it looked like we were going to have a huge pile up. Somehow though both drivers kept their calm and disconnected from each other to stay green as Gundaker took the lead and central Illinois Crate Late Model star Myles Moos rode the rim into second.
I would guess that most fans in a attendance, and those watching the Pay Per View on Dirt On Dirt were probably saying "who?" as Moos used the cushion to nip Gundaker at the line for the lead on laps two and three, but the top then went away quickly as Moos started to lose ground and positions over the next several laps. The first caution waved on lap thirteen when Jason Feger stopped at the top of turn one and one lap after the restart Georgian Tyler Millwood spun in turn three. On the next restart, Moos who was now sixth looped his car in turn one ending his bid to be the big surprise in the group of eight that will start at the front of Saturday's finale.
With the top now totally gone the final six laps would be a freight train around the bottom and with no mistakes up front Gundaker would secure the popular win. Carpenter finished second and would be my darkhorse pick to win tonight, Chad Zobrist was third and young Tanner English picked his way up to fourth. Kent Robinson came up one spot shy in fifth followed by Don O'Neal, Darrell Lanigan, Russ King, Hunter Rasdon and Mike Spatola.
The top half of the racing surface was reworked before the Modifieds came out to close the evening with their own $5,000-to-win twenty lap feature where the top eight drivers would lock in for Saturday night. Wichita's Tanner Mullens would start from the pole with Chesterfield, Virginia, driver Chris Arnold to his outside and after Mullens led lap one Arnold would spin in turn two while running second. Gary Bentley would spin on the back stretch on lap three before the race could get some flow to it with Mullens guarding the bottom in the lead.
Cautions for Curt Rhodes on lap ten and for Kyle Strickler on lap thirteen again interrupted the flow and on lap fifteen Tyler Nicley got fed up with Tim Hancock and took him for a spin in turn three. On the restart with everybody clamoring for the bottom Nick Hoffman, Kyle Steffens and Ryan Unzicker all got tangled up in turn two and following the delay to unhook the three cars that had been running in the top eight the final five laps went off without a hitch as Mullens went flag-to-flag for the win. Mike McKinney finished second as early challenger Mike Harrison dropped to third. Brent Mullins took fourth ahead of Levi Kissinger and Tommy Sheppard Jr. while Kenny Wallace gave up some ground trying the high side in the final laps finishing seventh. Ray Bollinger was the final transfer in eighth just ahead of Arnold and Unzicker.
Dome Notes......Racing started right on time at 3 p.m. with the first of eight Late Model heat races taking to a freshly watered and packed race track. Drivers were allowed to get a couple of hot laps in before lining up two-by-two for the green and then all hell broke loose as everybody tried to get to the bottom. Five caution flags were needed before the whole field could complete a lap and, with the track being one lane around the bottom along with three infield tires on both ends coming into play all eight heat races were essentially the same miserable scenario. Kudos to the All-Star announcing quartet of Ben Shelton, Dustin Jarrett, Trenton Berry and Blake Anderson as they were doing their best to be entertaining while polishing this turd and at one point I believe that it was Blake who said that the track "had character". That had to make a few people in the stands from Iowa chuckle as they know that this is a code word for "the track sucks". Sixty-four "scored" laps and thirty-two caution flags later the Late Model heats were complete and the track crew came out and did a spectacular job of making this an actual racing surface as the six Modified consolation races all saw two wide action with the first few of them totally leaving the bottom line, and the track tires, alone. Two of those six races were actually completed with just one caution flag needed in each......Austin Hubbard was not the only car to get upside down on the night as Derek Fetter took a tumble when Mike Spatola hooked him on a restart in the fifth heat......Iowa's Late Model representatives had a tough night as Justin Kay suffered a flat left rear tire after contact on the opening lap of his heat and Luke Goedert had just moved to the second and final transfer in the first Late Model B-Main when Cole Swibold took him out in turn three......Rob Toland had the lead in the final Late Model heat when he got sideways in turn four on lap two and appeared to stall the car......Here is a trivia question that you can spring on your Late Model fan friends. Name the one and only driver who has locked himself into the Saturday finale both years at the Dome: Chad Zobrist.......There was some interesting scoring and officiating on the evening as in the first B-Main for the Late Models Brandon Sheppard spun on a restart, but was not sent to the rear. Perhaps the caution was for something else prior to Sheppard's spin though as my view was blocked by a gaggle of fans returning to their seats from the just completed intermission and there was no replay on the video board. Sheppard went on to win the race and then finish fifth in the feature......After Darrell Lanigan threw a big slider on Rich Bell in turn two to take second with two laps to go in the third B-Main, Bell crossed him over and was underneath the multi-time World of Outlaws champ heading to turn three, but Bell ran out of room and spun. Justin Kay was the last car to drive around Bell, but for the restart Kay was placed ahead of five other drivers, not including Bell......At the conclusion of his heat race it was announced that Hudson O'Neal had been penalized two positions for jumping the final restart moving him from second to fourth in the official finish. This was reflected in the lineup as the first Late Model feature came to the track with O'Neal announced as starting fifteenth in the twenty-car field even though on the track he was lined up in seventh. Even in victory lane Blake Anderson made note of how impressive it was that the winner had come from the fifteenth starting position, but right after the interview either Jarrett or Shelton gave a quick correction that O'Neal had not actually been penalized for jumping the restart six hours earlier.
As you may know I came to this event last year and left after Thursday's qualifying, but after seeing video of the actual racing I decided to give it another try this year. Believe me, during the Late Model heat races I was tempted to get up and go salvage the trip with a nice dinner on The Hill, something that I believe the couple next to me actually did, but once the track was reworked I must say that the racing was pretty darn entertaining. It is definitely short track bullring racing, so you have to be okay with several cautions (73 total on the night) as drivers have to lean on each other quite a bit to make a pass, but that can be quite entertaining in itself. All in all it was a good show with the final checkers waving at 9:55 and I was able to make it home before "closing time". Does that mean that I will be back in 2018? Let's just say that I am not ruling it out.
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